The STRATEGIC Project’s Vision and Goals

The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy for Digital Health 2020-2025 highlights the crucial importance of digital health technologies for research and clinical practice. Several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are already reaching important milestones in integrating digital health technologies (such as mHealth, electronic health records, telemedicine, cloud computing-based applications and artificial intelligence) into health systems. of health. Current ethical and regulatory frameworks address aspects of the issues raised by these technologies, but rarely cover the full spectrum of new and exacerbated ethical and legal risks from digital health technologies.

The STRATEGIC project aims to co-create a responsible, culturally sensitive research and innovation approach and contribute for strengthening of the existing ethical and regulatory capabilities for the socially acceptable design and deployment of digital health technologies in Saharan Africa. By nurturing a network of specialized stakeholders through the e-community, the project seeks to facilitate knowledge sharing, best practices and continuous learning in the field of responsible digital health in research and care in Saharan Africa.

To achieve the aims, the STRATEGIC project begins with exploring the existing ethical and regulatory infrastructure in selected countries in Saharan Africa. In fact, it aims to understand key strengths, gaps, needs and contexts, especially with regard to National Ethics Committees (CNE) and National Regulatory Agencies (RNA).

The number and diversity of countries in sub-Saharan African prevent comprehensive coverage of all National Ethics Committees (CNE) and National Regulatory Agencies (RNA). Thus, the project will focus on the three countries where the STRATEGIC partners exist (namely, Ghana, Cameroon and Mozambique). These countries represent English, French and Portuguese speaking countries respectively. Relevant stakeholders from these countries will be engaged throughout the project to assess the needs and jointly cocreate training materials for subsequent capacity building activities for a responsible approach to research and health care through use of digital technologies in Saharan Africa.

We are seeking answers for questions such as:

• In your opinion, are ethical aspects observed in the use of digital technologies in health research and care?

• What type of ethical issues, in your perspective, emerge when using digital technologies in health research and care?

• Who, in your country/institution, ensure that all ethical aspects of the use of digital technologies in health research and care are appropriately observed?

• In your country/institution, what policies and norms exist for data protection? How these policies and norms are implemented and supervised?

• What is the role of health bioethics committees and other regulatory agencies in ensuring the ethical use of digital platforms in research and health care?

• Please, share other issues or worries you might have related to the ethical use of digital platforms in research and health care?